Health Metrics World Conference Blog 2018

Health Metrics World Conference Blog 2018

Thursday 12 April, 2018

Post by Nicholas Gruen

Welcome to the blog of the second Health Metrics World Conference. It’s not that long since I spoke at the first World Conference. Shortly afterward I was honoured to find myself Chairman of the Health Metrics Board! It’s great to join the team and participate in the incredible work achieved via the eCase platform.

As I checked out the feedback from last year’s conference it was clear that in your eyes, we’d done a great job.

In this year’s conference we want to take things further. In addition to having great speakers from within and outside the industry, I’m also keen that we open ourselves up to your feedback to make sure that this year’s conference is even better and meets your needs.

If you knew my background you wouldn’t be surprised in the faith I have in using basic internet tools like blogs and other social media to open up processes to anyone with the enthusiasm to contribute. In 2009 I chaired the Government 2.0 Taskforce for the Federal Government which reported on how governments could use the new interactive technologies to improve the way they worked. We documented the way in which organisations could now access the knowledge of those users and others in the community with the enthusiasm to contribute. I argued that ‘Our ABC’ could do with a good dose of this in this blog post and then ABC CEO invited me to present to ABC staff in Sydney and Melbourne.

We want to hear from you

So we’re starting this blog to get your feedback and contributions. If you were at our last World conference, let us know what you thought we did right and what we could have improved – and how. And whether or not you were there last year, tell us what you want this year. Planning is already well underway, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take your feedback into account. Do it via the comments section below – and hopefully we’ll start a conversation.

One suggestion for improvement from last year’s survey of conference delegates stands out. Two thirds of respondents ticked “Make the events more interactive”. So we’re thinking about how to do that. Again, let us know if you’ve got ideas.

Focus on the future

One thing we want this conference to focus on is the future. There are all kinds of changes coming down the pipe at us. Technology and technological possibilities are changing fast. The internet of things – the use of sensors and mining the data from those sensors for clinically relevant knowledge – is starting to make a difference in our industry. So when you leave the conference, we want you to be better informed about it – in general and in particular, with regard to specific actions you can take, things that are going on and products you can or soon will be able to access.

The people are the future

If you come to the conference, my desire is that you leave aware of plenty of ‘rising stars’ within the industry – people doing new things, seizing new opportunities in innovative ways, or just people doing an uncommonly great job. People you’ll be glad you’ve heard about, who you might want to stay in touch with after the conference.

So we’re thinking of peppering our conference with ‘rising stars’. People in our industry who may not be particularly well known, who are doing great things for aged care in Australia and New Zealand which most people haven’t heard of yet.

So let us know if you’ve got any input on any of these things. Tell us how we can improve our conference, how we can amp up its interactivity; what the emerging issues are for you and who are the rising stars of the industry. And if the comments thread below doesn’t suit you and you’d prefer to send in a suggestion or other communication, feel free to drop me a line on ngruen@lateraleconomics.com.au.

I hope to see you at the conference. If you see me, please come and say hello.

About the author

Nicholas Gruen is the Chair of Health Metrics. He is a policy economist, entrepreneur and commentator, founder of Lateral Economics and Peach Financial, Visiting Professor at Kings College London Policy Institute and Adjunct Professor at UTS Business School.

He chairs Health Metrics (Australia’s premier software supplier for aged care), the Open Knowledge Foundation (Australia) and is patron of the Australian Digital Alliance

He chaired The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) from until 2016 and Innovation Australia until 2014. .